I am an award-winning journalist and a New York Times best selling author. My latest book is Newton's Football: The Science Behind America's Game, published by Ballantine in November 2013. My other books include The Billion Dollar Game: Behind the Scenes at the Super Bowl and Clapton's Guitar: Watching Wayne Henderson Build the Perfect Instrument. For five years I wrote the By the Numbers sports analytics column for the Wall Street Journal. I have written about sports, music, entertainment, pop culture and politics for a wide variety of national publications including The New York Times Magazine, Salon, Rolling Stone, Men's Journal, The Daily Beast, The Washington Post and The Village Voice. I'm a graduate of The University of Chicago and I live in Montclair N.J. with my wife, two kids, and my golden retriever, Tessie.
Follow me on Twitter @allenstjohn

Will You Keep Watching HBO's 'True Detective' Even If It Drives You Insane?

“I won’t avert my eyes. Not again.” That’s what Rust Cohle says in Episode seven of HBO’s True Detective when faced with those videotapes that no one should watch. “That little girl is Marie Fontenot.” (Spoiler alert to Episode 7 of True Detective)

And that’s been both Cohle’s gift and his curse, his steadfast refusal to avert his eyes. And that’s our challenge too, as True Detective draws to its conclusion next week.

In many ways, this episode was the series’ most conventional. Showrunner Nic Pizzolatto gives us what we’ve been craving since episode one: getting Marty and Rust together in real time, working on the nuts and bolts of solving a murder.

We can enjoy it, at least for a while, but should we trust it? Cohle, played as tight as razor wire by newly crowned Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey, doesn’t know what to make of this, and his confusion mirrors our own.

And that’s the Yellow King that True Detective has been hinting about for all those weeks.

Robert Chambers wrote a collection of short stories loosely organized around the conceit of a play with a second act so disturbing that it drives the audience insane. And a first act that’s so compelling that they can’t stop watching even though they understand their fate. That play is called The King In Yellow.

That’s the kind of story that True Detective has been. Compelling? To be sure. But also full of teases that lead to dead ends. And moments where we’re living the detective’s curse, with an answer right under our nose, but not knowing where to look. As when Cohle leaves Lawnmower Man to chase Reggie Ledoux. And Papania and Gilbough use the Man with the Scar as nothing more than a poor man’s GPS.

And that’s the perilous road that Rust and Marty seem headed down together. They understand what’s waiting for them as they search for whatever lies on the other side of Reggie Ledoux and the Lawnmower Man. They know that it has destroyed others. And that it’s more than capable of destroying them.

It’s no coincidence that the background music, as Rust was sitting at the bar, was Richard Thompson’s “Did She Jump or Was She Pushed?” a song about the thin line between homicide and suicide. (Yet another great call by music supervisor T. Bone Burnett.)

And that’s the abyss that Hart and Cohle seem to be hurtling toward. There are 1,000 reasons or a million to back off or to look away. But they won’t. “We left something undone,” says Rustin Cohle. “We’ve got to fix it.”

No matter what the cost. And we’ll keep right on watching.

What’s your take on Episode 7? Where is this story going? And is it driving you insane? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Alyssa’s a fine writer, but I honestly didn’t even see that piece until you mentioned it, and discussion of the The King in Yellow have dominated the critical discussion of True Detective in recent weeks.